Skinamarink: El Despertar Del Mal

????? ?????? Don't even know what to say Some loved this movie. Some hated this movie. I fall inbetween. It's less a movie and more of an abstract art piece of different (very dark) shots and clips of things happening (or not happening) around a house where the windows and doors mysteriously vanished leaving 2 young children trapped inside with...something. It's extremely boring, nothing happens on screen, but I do have to say the jump scares got me GOOD. Some parts were very creepy and it had great atmospheric potential and I could see the vision they had, but it felt more like a grad school project with a budget of $10. It's Paranormal Activity's less formed, visually darker, weirder, younger sibling. Art is great - but when a movie relies too much on being abstract, they forget to actually create a film.

But there's also over an hour of sleep-inducing dead air that does nothing to increase tension or atmosphere, at least for me. I am someone who enjoys a slow burn, but even I have my limits. I watched it at night to get into the horror atmosphere and I struggled not to fall asleep throughout the whole thing.

It's a shame, because if you cut out most of that dead air there are moments of pure horror that genuinely freaked me out. Hopefully someone will do a fan edit and cut out over an hour of weird camera angles and the sound of old cartoons playing in the distance because my god there's only so much I could handle...

I did not dislike this movie. It was more or less exactly what I expected. As a fan of the creepy aesthetic of David Lynch and movies that challenge the audience I wasn't too disappointed. I love the concept and appreciate the approach but ultimately if you are going to ask an audience for 90-120 minutes of their time I think a film should give them more than Skinamarink delivers. Still, from a first time filmmaker it's an admirable effort.

I far prefer slow burning horror films that play to the fear of the unknown and an have an underlying sense of dread (The Witch, Hereditary, and The Blair Witch Project are personal faves). Skinamarink tries to play in this arena but doesn't effectively use any cinematic tools to build tension or make the viewer anxious. No soundtrack, very little camera movement, and not enough dynamic use of light and shadow. All things that I think probably could have been achieved, even with a miniscule budget. Thematically it starts in a very minable vein but then doesn't actually develop what amounts to a fairly universal experience of fear (i.e. Being a defenseless child abandoned by caregivers). We feel isolated and alone with the children but are distanced from the sense that anything frightening is happening I think because so little of the film takes place from the children's perspective. It did get me thinking about how to make a horror movie driven by fear of the unknown. If you want to make something universally scary how much do you need to show the audience to prime them to be afraid and how much can you leave to their imaginations? In the end Skinamarink asks the individual viewer to fill in too many blanks for it to be an effective horror movie in my opinion. Truly neurotic people will probably find it unnerving and anxiety inducing but aside from a couple of cheap jump scares nothing particularly interesting happens. My impression was that the vast majority of people will most likely find the movie a waste of time and for that reason I cannot recommend it. But if you like a challenge, are home alone on a stormy night, and/or are capable of letting your imagination run wild then, sure, give it a shot.

What happens when you get a community college film maker an 8mm Snapchat filter and a near sighted toddler as a cameraman? This. Hope you like ankles, muffled dialogue with subtitles, closeups of door frames and other pseudo artistic shots of doorknobs and corners of televisions. I'd rather watch the emoji movie for 24 hours straight than ever see this again. I'm a huge horror fan and have been for my entire life, ad never been so disappointed. Currently seeing a 60 second closeup of shredded wheat in a bowl with no milk. Literally...that's a scene. But, it does transition to a single power outlet for 15 seconds after that. And, as a bonus, you get one line of dialogue every 3-4 minutes like "dad, I'm going to go to sleep" while focusing on a linoleum tile for 24 seconds. Wait! I just saw a calf AND a foot! Do NOT waste one second on this "film"

All the people saying this film is plotless are wrong. There is a plot here, although it is extemely vague and thin. Might be one of the thinnest plotlines I've ever seen and that is what caused the film to be at times unbearably boring for me. I actually enjoyed the aesthetic for the film, the faceless characters, the low light, lofi camera work. It's a style that could present a high creep factor with the proper story to go along with it. This is not that story.

I will say this is much better than the director's previous effort 'Heck', which is basically the short film that started this one. It feels like the director has a better grip on the style he's presenting here. That still doesn't make up for the lack of story here.

The film opens with one of the children falling down the stairs and this starts the chain of events that make me believe the child actually died when this happened and he is living in some purgatory or hell. What follows after this could only be described as mean spirited and harsh, but it unfolds so slowly that you feel like you're just watching paint dry. There are some suitably creepy moments but they are few and far between. Actually there is maybe about 3 or 4 creepy scenes in the entire film, the ending being far and wide the most uncomfortable. Had me looking over my shoulder as I was leaving the theater.(I had the whole theater to myself, I'm assuming due to bad weather, but it was probably the best way to watch this film as isolation is a major theme.) The ending felt like I was being personally talked to by the faceless, out of focus boy and I hated it, but in a good way.

All in all, I still couldn't call this a good movie and it will only appeal to a very niche horror crowd. I commend the director for creating something so different. I just wish there was as much thought put into the story as there was in the shooting style.

2 portals out of 5.